Hungary refuses to accept more migrants

Photo credit: Reuters. Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó.

TMP – 13/12/2017

Hungary has announced it will not cooperate with the European Union (EU) on the rehousing of migrants, rejecting the proposed plan to distribute asylum seekers throughout Europe.
“Hungary’s view on migration is clear and rock steady: we think illegal immigration is dangerous. Because of illegal immigration, Europe has never had to face the kind of terror threat it faces now,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó told a news conference.

The foreign minister stressed that any sort of “encouragement” for further migrant arrivals was against the interests of Europe.

Under the rehousing plan, the European Commission would decide on the number of asylum seekers that each EU country would be expected to take in, in order to ease the burden on those countries overwhelmed by high numbers of migrant arrivals.

The issue of migrant quotas dates back to the EU decision in 2015 to rehouse 160,000 migrants from Greece and Italy within other member states over a period of two years. As of November 2017, only around 32,000 migrants had been resettled.

The resettlement plan was strongly opposed by countries believed to be not popular destinations for migrants. Hungary and Poland refused to take part in the programme, while Slovakia has only taken in a small number from Greece.